‘I ate human flesh at Obubra’

The other question I want to ask has to do with the fact that IBM Haruna said that he killed the Igbos in cold blood because there was a pogrom in Asaba

Did he use the word pogrom?

No, that is my language. Okay, he revenged because there was a pogrom of the Hausas in Asaba. You were in Asaba at that time, then made reference to the pogrom that happened. Now, does that now lend weight to the argument that the killings were on both sides?

Let me tell you what I know. First the officers of the coup were considered as Nigerian army officers, but as the dust settled, they too started to read meaning to it.

Who started reading meaning into it?

The Igbo officers were fleeing. This thing is sectional oh! We have killed Saurdana, we’ve killed all the Hausa senior officers, they started sending their families home. It was not to fight but to flee, I wrote in the book. Because if they waited to fight, they would have all gone to the armoury, it would have been one for one. Now the Igbo officers left, in the police, in the navy, everywhere they left.

But they didn’t take confidently …(cuts in)

They had the opportunities. So they left the Igbo traders undefended. They left the civilians undefended at the mercy of whoever had the gun. Ironsi, himself, as one of the blunderers took, as if to make you a governor was a compensation for a job well done… who wanted to be a governor? I wanted to command the Nigerian army. We wanted to be generals. We wanted our white gorgets as cadets to be red. He removed him from 5th battalion to Enugu as governor and he put a Hausa man there. He removed Ojukwu from 5th Battalion at Kano to Enugu. Having done that …

Ojukwu was not one of the coup plotters?

He was one of those who made the coup to fail in the north and Ironsi made the coup to fail in the south. As if making him a governor was compensation, why did he remove him as commander? So he put a Hausa man there, who was Shuwa, with guns in his hands. They were ready and that was what happened.

But the officers were transferred…

We didn’t transfer ourselves there! It just fell in place that they were Yorubas. So if you use the word that the Yorubas ended the war, that may be true. And that whether the north started the killings and so on, well it may be because you killed their people first. So when they got to Asaba, the Biafrans also killed the Hausas there. So when the federal troops now had the upper hand and got the initiative, they had their day. But in spite of that, the Igbos have always aligned with the Hausas even till today.

You forgot the minorities, the Anangs and Itsekiris

Why I use that word is because the whole east was considered Igbo in my time. In your time you now have Bayelsa. I never heard of Bayelsa before. So when I use the word east, I mean the whole east. When I use the word north, I mean the whole north and the whole west. And I am telling you today that that same west is still not part of PDP. So who is complaining? Who is ruling the country? Let us face this fact for once; I am saying that the strange destiny that put us together, let us understand it. That is why kolanut is grown in the west, it is eaten in the north and worshipped in the east because when we give you kola we give you life. In my father’s village, anytime I go to visit them, I come back with a lot of kolanuts in my pocket. That is life! You think God made a mistake by putting us together? Anybody who wants to fight, let him stand up to fight now, which is called revolution. And if we are going to sit down to talk, it is called resolution, let’s sit down and talk. I am not a Yoruba man, I am a minority in Ilorin; we are at the backyard of the north. I am a minority in the Igbo area; I am at the backyard of the Igbo. But I am telling you who is marginalised, it is the Yoruba. Where are they in the scheme of things? But the complaints since independence, Igbos and Hausas have been complaining that the country is not good.

The point I want to make about what you have said is that, before the war, the Hausas planned the coup. With what happened after the coup, I was a small boy in Lagos, we ran away at night because our lives were in danger. In the north it was massacre..

They started looking for Igbos when they got to Ore, where they started bombing.

The point I was coming to is that, if that had to happened, what should the Igbos have done under the circumstance. That kind of pogrom, should it have happened? Officers were killed in a coup, pregnant women and children were being killed everywhere, was that called for?

You still don’t get it. I told you about the feudal system; you killed his benefactor and he does not have a reason to live anymore. Live for what? They don’t know how to work, they have no job, you have killed our leaders who fed us. I told you not that we did not eat enough, we did not eat at all.

Are you justifying it or you are explaining it?

I’m explaining it that, you are saying pogrom, these people are not looking at it that way, I gave you the example about that in those days, everywhere that you found an Igbo man.

Was that also part of the reason why, ‘okay, this people we have been targeting them, this is the opportunity to go and get them. Let’s kill them, let’s take all their properties. Even those in the civil service, others everywhere, let’s chase them away so we can occupy the place?’

You are misinterpreting it. That’s not the point. The point was if you had killed the leaders, am sure if they had killed the Hausa and left the leaders, nothing would have happened. It’s like when they killed Ademulegun, they killed Ademulegun with his wife on the bed. They killed Sodeinde with a pregnant wife; what are we talking about here? If you look at it as an Igbo man, then you look at it as an Igbo man, I am talking to you as a Nigerian that what happened then, they could have carried on to the end. They would have done the same in the east. They would just handle the leaders and if you couldn’t get them, what you need to do was to jail them, put them in jail and lock them up even if it was only for one day. You killed a general in the room with the wife on the bed! These are people you ate with and drank together in the officers’ mess. I’m explaining this point for you to understand why they were vicious. A lot of us were happy about the coup. You will read my second book, don’t worry. But the point is again, when Biafrans got to Asaba, you must have read the book Blood on the Niger by Emma Okocha. When they got to Asaba, they killed all the Hausas in Ogbe Hausa, at Ikebu point. No one was allowed to escape. They wiped all of them out.

After the pogrom?

What pogrom?

This is like a counter pogrom. (Laughter)

You see, after you had killed the leaders, whether you called it pogrom or not, you had killed all of them.

Now you are talking about the psychology of the feudal society…

That is what I am telling you now, if you don’t know I know it because I was a beggar. I was just five years old. I carried plates to go to the street to beg until my mother came on the eighth day and took me, that was when I started going to school. I wrote it in my book. The Emir of Ilorin made me to go to school, the father of the current Emir.

The image of the begging bowl throws up the question of money. In your other interview, you spoke of Adekunle, his terrible state now and you said that, am quoting you now. You said ‘if he (Adekunle) had made the kind of money that the rest of them made, he would be rich.’ That struck me and I began to wonder: in a war situation, do people make money?

Do they?

That’s what you said

But you haven’t been to my house to see…

Hold on, I am not saying you are among them?

It is possible, I am not an angel. May be I didn’t steal enough.

You said if he had made the kind of money the rest of the people had, he would be rich. Who are these people?

I think somebody called me yesterday to say that there was an interview by Akin Aduwo when he said Adekunle told him to go and take 9 million pounds or something.

My question is, who are these ‘rest of them’? Could you be more specific, or maybe how did they make this money from what was going on?

Let me put it this way. Many of us in the army inherited this or that. For instance, my mother bought a place in Surulere, one bungalow, and I said Alhaja, you mean a general should live in a bungalow, lo ta ile o, (go sell your house), I don’t want to live in a bungalow. My wife said ‘oh I will use if for hair dressing.’ Today, that house is being sold for N50 million. Many of us inherited one thing or the other. But again let me tell you, you have seen how officers live. Let me repeat myself, you have seen how officers live. You’ve been to some of them. Let us total their salaries from when they were in the army, was that what they spent in building those houses? Are you saying that Adekunle, if he stole that kind of 9 million pounds, you will see him unable to pay his medical bills?

I’m interested in the rest of them, if you could be more concrete, and how was it possible at the war front to get rich?

It was possible because when Obasanjo said they should pay all the soldiers, if a soldier was killed the other soldiers would pick up the money. It’s a free world now, so many of them could have done that.

Other possibilities?

I don’t know. Maybe they told them to go and buy weapon or supplies, but army officers in Marine Commando… for instance, Obasanjo wrote in his book, that they were buying cow for N60 and somebody was buying meat for N90 and when he came he negotiated N60 and they approved. Which Hausa man brought cow to Marine Commando? Who was he talking to? He said he now discussed with cow dealers and they accepted N60 instead of N90. So which Hausa man brought the cow to the war front? I was Chief of Staff of Marine Commando. I didn’t have meat in my food until we got to Obubra and which meat did I eat? human flesh. It was human flesh and I used palm wine to wash it down, and I did not know until I saw Capt Akinyanju in charge of supply and transport, and I said to him, well done you arrived so quickly you must have been following the attack. He said, ‘Oga, we never leave Calabar o, we’ve been eating meat since.’ I asked him, how come? He said, ‘I no know, make we go find out.’ The natives came and told us there were so many Biafrans on the streets and they put them in their houses. When we went and opened their freezers or something we found them, they’ve roasted them and I ate and I did not even vomit.

I read Adekunle asked you how did human flesh taste?

Adekunle said I heard you ate human flesh. I said, well, that’s what they told me that it was human flesh, not bush meat. He said how was it? I must have eaten the wrong part of the steak. And I said it was tender o. An officer, Utuk, at Owerri, when he saw me, he started crying. He said ‘the thing wey make me cry sir: the day I peed in my cup and put some garri to drink and as soon as I finished that garri, rain fell.’ What do you make of this? We had terrible experiences. What we went through was not a joke. Today you are talking about Nigeria and that’s why it pains people like me to see Adekunle in such condition.

That brings us to the question of money generally as a value of exchange. There was this story sometime ago that Muritala Mohammed broke a bank and looted the bank. Was it true? Secondly, were there other cases of looting on the federal side?

Let me tell you, I don’t have a reservoir of knowledge on these things we are discussing. I only know my side of the story and that is why in my book I said this is my story. Whoever is going to say it’s not correct must be there with me. Okay, first of all, I was not in Benin but it was Biafra that first entered Benin. The Biafrans did not take the money so they left it for Murtala to come around and take? Somebody must be lying. If you read Blood on The Niger, they took some money from the Central Bank to Asaba because they made Asaba their new headquarters.

Adekunle emerged at the beginning of your story as not only a very good leader but also a genial person. You were also calling him egbon mi, then things changed. There are a number of stories that have been told about Adekunle that we don’t see in your story. One, we know that he wasn’t really in the battle front, the myth about him was that he was a man with the disappearing act. Two, that he was just a brave man in front of the battle carrying gun and killing Biafrans. From the story we know, that he did not even have contact with a lot of Igbos. So how did it come that Adekunle had become demystified in your book?

The first thing was that Adekunle commanded the troop that captured Bonny, today adjudged as the best free-landing in Africa. He landed his troops at Calabar, again adjudged as one of the best free-landing because those were difficult operations then. Anywhere at all, free-landing, river-crossing, those were difficult operations. He successfully did that. Then I became his chief of staff; he had somebody to discuss with. We were friends before the war. He would say we were going to capture Obubra, what do you think? We would sit down and debate, and I mean the word debate. When he had to give his orders there was no doubt who was the commander but the debate helped both of us. We did not operate in Igbo areas, we were in Calabar, Port Harcourt, Eket, Ikot Ekpene, Obubra, Ntigidi, Opobo, Bori, Okrika, Bonnny, etc.

But every time he went to Lagos, Adekunle would say all Igbos must die or something like that. I would ask him, Oga mi, this is the headline, did you say that? He would say he didn’t say that, and that the publisher had to sell its paper but that he boasted anyway. So Lagos did a lot of things to this man. And that was what happened. It was just unfortunate. He would come back with a newspaper saying I will kill anything that is moving, Adekunle was not there to kill anybody. He gave me authority to feed the people. I couldn’t have opened hospital for women and children without him giving me the authority. All I needed to do was ask. These people wanted to take school certificate, this is the school I have opened, he would come and see. One of the pictures was when he came to see the Biafrans that were captured, we kitted them, we gave them the numbers and documented them, he was there. But when he got back after he had captured Port Harcourt, something changed, he had told the press in Lagos, they said now that you have captured Port Harcourt, where next do you want to capture? he said ‘I want to capture Aba and Umuahia for the commander’s birthday or independence.’ ‘Oga mi, you are not going to send me to Umuahia, nobody will send me there until my troops are ready for it.’ He said, okay, don’t worry. Shande, you are promoted lieutenant colonel, you go to Umuahia. Utuk, you are promoted lieutenant colonel, you go to Owerri. Akinrinade warned him that we could not go to Owerri, because left and right, Owerri to Umuahia is a distance to Aba and Owerri to Port Harcourt. With that there was a gap in between, how many troops did we have to cover these gaps?

So it was okay to capture Aba because it was part of the movement. Remember, from Calabar to Port Harcourt, we were advancing like this with our right flank to the Igbo area. That’s Ikpot Ekpene, Aba, Omoku, Owerri, that’s to our right. Therefore to be able to look after those areas, we needed reserve. If there was an attack for any side, we didn’t have to stop the troops advancing, the reserve would move in there. That was what happened in Ikot Ekpene and we didn’t realise that the Biafrans themselves, the officers were not too fast forward enough. I wrote it in my book there because every town a captain is not there, that’s why we didn’t attack Arochukwu. Uwakwe was my classmate, they shot him and the bullet came out of his mouth and broke all his teeth. He just died on the 15th of January this year. It was because of him I did not attack Urochukwu I sent him a note. He still had the note. He came to my house in Surulere and we discussed the note. And I said well, you didn’t attack, so we didn’t attack. That’s why there was no war in Arochukwu; there was no battle fought in Arochukwu.

But Obasanjo went an Israelite journey to Arochukwu (laughter)?

Obasanjo, God bless him. He sent Inih to Arochukwu. Here is what happened, let me put it this way, I don’t know how much of Baghdad war that you all know. The British were in Basra, Americans were going to Baghdad. Then for an American commander to send his troop to Baghdad so that they could pass through the British, we don’t operate in infantry like that. Because the man in Basra already knew the position of the enemy, how many they were, he already had his data. All he had to be told was attack this place, he got his data. You now send somebody coming from somewhere to go to Basra and do what?

So Adekunle became paranoid?

Adekunle, now because he had boasted to the press in Lagos that, “oh when I get there, I will spend the weekend in Port Harcourt, we will capture Port Harcourt on the 18th of May 1968. Well anybody who doesn’t like federal troops should just go through Owerri because I have closed Aba road.” You know what we agreed was that he should please announce that we would start artillery fire and anybody who didn’t like federal troops should go through Owerri, don’t come to Aba because we had blocked Obigbo and he started to boast in Lagos. What we are saying is that the mistake Adekunle made was the fact that he had boasted and when Owerri, Aba, Umuahia failed, he failed with it. Oga don’t let us do it this way, it was like the German officer telling Hitler don’t go to Barbarossa, don’t let us go to Barbarossa, he would say laye . He’ll say fall out, you are promoted to Field Marshall, that one quickly surrendered. He said Field Marshall will never surrender, he said well this will be the first Field Marshall to surrender.

You didn’t say much about Adaka Boro in your book in the sense that he was the man who wanted his revolt, he was a very political person. You didn’t say much about his politics. He couldn’t have been even for Nigeria, we would have expected that he would have been for Nigeria because of the revolt against Nigeria?

I agree with you but we never discussed politics. I was a 27-year-old boy. What wiould I know in politics. I just wanted to be a commander and I had my opportunity and when I got stuck I didn’t know what to do and he said, ‘Oga no be so I go do am, na so and I agree with them.’ You see that’s the difference about commanders you know, we are two different types. I could have said shut up, I’m the commander here. And I would have gotten stuck with what the others did. But in this case that’s the point you were asking me, but in this case I said if you say ‘no be so I go do am’, tell me how I go do am show me, and he showed me and that is why even right here, I wrote in this book here, look, I said ‘Isaac Boro left and Alabi Isama’s surmounting terrain challenges were difficult without Isaac Boro.’ That’s Isaac Boro, that’s myself, he was teaching me what to do, I was his commander but I didn’t know enough.

And you have the picture of the person who killed Isaac Boro, can you just simply.. a kind of?

Well, the strategy, scorpion strategy, here is what is called scorpion strategy. That’s how Adekunle got the name. What happened was that all of us were to converge in phase one at Opobo, in phase two at Aletu Eleme with Okrika on the other side, Akinrinade was not to attack Port Harcourt, Obasanjo said he attacked Port Harcourt and he failed. No, it’s not to attack PH, he didn’t know and he didn’t ask. Why was Akinrinade there? Akinrinade was to divert the attention coming from the left and when they saw that Akinrinade’s troop ran away from One, they reinforced One. The more they reinforced One, the more opened their plans. It was a tactic between myself and Akinrinade. You have read many mails Akinrinade Alabi, Akinrinade Alabi, that’s my part. We did that, you know that was how Adekunle got his scorpion name. and like I was telling you, you see Alabi Nsama advancing with the troops here, this is Alabi Nsama and before they would start opening fire and I said, ‘okay, all of you now make una continue o, I will go look for ammunition and come back, would that be right?’

This was Adekunle’s idea?

No, no I drew this.

But he got the name scorpion through it?

I called it scorpion strategy. His sting is in the tail, he just got that name from Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill and Kola Animashaun was a journalist. I think they had a quarrel with what Winston said was that at age of 32 or something you are the commander here, the divisional commander, Adekunle said your father was 26 when he was a member of parliament, why would you think an African will not do, so they quarreled from there. Then he said look, just send him to Alabi because he was asking how did we cross Opobo River without the crossing equipment. And I said we crossed with canoe and I started showing him these things. Look at 500 canoes, one canoe carries six men with kits, 35 men were to cross the river, then we built burton. We built two burtons like Alexander The Great, 332 BC to cross to our fighting positions. 35, 000 troops, 1600 bags of garri, 1200 bags of rice, 600 bags of beans, 20 bags of salt, armoured cars, cases of ammunition, artillery, weapons, vehicles and more crossed in 48 hours, all day all night. He was the one that consummated the battles after which Obasanjo took the glory for the surrender of Biafra, he was the one that protected him after the Dimka coup and aided his becoming head. Why is it that in spite of all Akinrinade had done for Obasanjo, Obasanjo does not like him?

Despite all that Jesus did for everybody, what became of Him? That’s what happens. People like that, you know I told Kunle Ajibade when they came here, you know in life my dear brother, there is this phenomenon of history. These things do happen that people thought of in rare situations like Ghengis Khan, Ataturk, Hitler, their destiny would take life and blood and people like Mandela would be there. Gowon, despite the Geneva Convention, he also set up another to say this is my code of conduct, don’t kill Igbo, don’t do this, don’t do that. There are people like that. Alexander Dumas in France, that man won all the battles; he was a black man his mother was a slave. He won battles, he commanded the French troops, they sent him to the coldest points and he won battles there. When Napoleon came, in order to get credibility for his scheme, he said everybody was a slave. Alexander Dumas died penniless. You see, this phenomenon happens in life with mankind. What Hitler wanted with bullets, today Germany got with ballots. Is it not better today without killing anybody?

They are taking over the whole of Europe?

Today is there any country in Europe that would not respect Germany. Now, that’s what Hitler wanted but he did it his own way. That was the level of his IQ.

Let me take you to the political terrain sir. At the point when Ojukwu and Gowon went to Aburi, if Nigeria had accepted Aburi, don’t you think things would have been better today?

You see that is politics and I don’t like politics. But I have started liking politics, you know why, when politicians launched their books, all politicians were there, army is going to launch book it was difficult to find army men around. My colleagues were too old, many of them suffer from arthritis, in fact, today I was told to go and check myself for blood sugar level. They told me to go and check it today because I told them I had headache yesterday and my hands were shaking. Actually I didn’t eat, we were busy here. They said okay go check your blood sugar. We are all old people. Many of my old friends you will see with walking stick and limping. So, Alabi-Isama is different. My brother, You are talking to me about politics. When they went to Aburi, what was Ojukwu looking for? He was not looking for how his people will be secured and safe, he wanted Biafra. If he was talking of security, he would sit down there with his people and debate. Okay, we would be back in Nigeria on these conditions, they didn’t do that. I am a strategist not a politician. That’s what I would have done. Because you don’t get what you want, you get what you negotiate. He didn’t do that. He wanted Biafra, not security of his people. Are Igbo people not secure now?

But some people are clamouring for regions now?

Yes

The South West for instance, the same route Aburi was enlisting!

Aburi was looking for confederation. We are not looking for confederation, we are looking for one Nigeria. See the kolanut has put us together and we don’t know why. Let us face facts between us here today, are we not better off Nigerians than Biafrans or than Oduduwas Hausas? Today, we have broken the back of the middle class. Can we move this country forward without the middle class? Who finished them? You will read it in my book.

You said Biafra had numerous talented officers; was it Ojukwu’s fault as a general not to be able to deploy them well?

You are very right. I wrote a bit about that in my book where Njoku could have been the commander. Ojukwu would have been a PR person full stop. Zik you go do politics, Njoku you go do military duties. He would have distributed them. What I am telling you is that when we put the Biafrans back in the army after we captured them, they were pleased, they fought against Biafra, so that shows you that they were not looking for slogans. These people were looking for food, for security and they got them on our side and words go out fast. They told the rest and the rest came back. Biafra almost had nobody left at a point. The women and all the children that were starving came back and they got food. Nobody gave me the food to go and give Biafra it was my initiative. I did that so they could come back to the Nigerian side and I went on an attack with them, they did well. So what I am saying is that Ojukwu did not deploy his men properly. You need to read Ben Gbulie’s book on Biafra, how they went and even furnished their houses because we are talking about head of state house, they went to furnish their houses when people could not eat.

You rated Njoku above Ojukwu?

Because he was senior to Ojukwu.

Beyond that you seems to … (cuts in)

Yes, because I went on an operation with Njoku and Njoku saw what I did, he praised me for it. He was the Biafran commander. I am very sure he would have said I knew Alabi-Isama was not going to sit down there for you to get him, let’s do it this way. I also know Madiebo well, Madiebo just did wonders. How he was able to keep the army for three years, I don’t know. But believe me I will give him credit here because they said they had no weapons. That could not have been his fault, that was where the government failed and the army failed, well that was well said.

You are talking of this second book, a sequel; does it mean this book has not exhausted what you want to say about the war and why not?

Why not, I read a newspaper, I think it was The Nation, December 10 last year where (Walter) Ofonagoro was addressing Igbo youths and he said the first coup was not Igbo coup, I agree with that. Then he said 75 percent of Nigerians were ruled by Igbo people, I agreed with him but he missed the point when he was now talking about Bakassi. He was talking about pogrom and he was taking about genocide. That genocide, I need to address the issue. You slapped me and I broke your head, then you went and reported to the elders, am I guilty? These are the issues we are talking about. Let me tell you here whether on record or off record, the Igbo will rule this country in the near future, only if they stop trading and start manufacturing what they are selling. Where is Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN) today? Obasanjo went and bought foreign vehicles, that was how PAN collapsed. Now Awolowo warned in Aba that we should have stopped this second hand clothing. He went into the Aba Textile Mill and he saw it was not doing well and he said ‘don’t worry, by the grace of God when I become president I will stop this second hand clothing and the textile people would start booming’. Today we don’t have any textile mill in the whole country. Look at what you have here with you, which one is manufactured here? Everything including biro and paper and your slippers which one is manufactured here? We are just selling what people produced. What am trying to tell you is that in my second book, I have not finished talking, why is this quarrel necessary when the Igbo and Hausa are ruling the country from independence till today yet we cannot stop complaining. That’s my point about the second book.

As a follow up to this, I understand your views on pogroms, genocide and the blockade and all that but, the way the Igbo see it is that they were unfairly treated by the Nigerian nation. It was like a gang up to exterminate the Igbo. That is how the Igbo are seeing it. Even till today, there is no memorial anywhere to say that we fought a war? At least a million people died from both sides because it is about the Igbo people just want to sweep it under a carpet and forget about it. All over the world it is not done like that, then on a lighter side, I notice that you were wearing a beard as a soldier all through the war were you allowed to wear a beard? Then the last one, I am interested in knowing who were you classmates?

It’s in the book: Danjuma, Ogbemudia, Adamu, Apollo, Bamgboye,

What about in Secondary School?

Secondary school is also here, I was captain of Ibadan Boys High School. The story is there. There are pictures there. We were the Western champion in football, we beat everybody.

The bushy beard ?

As you can see, am still not smooth because I have this acne when I got to England I had too many of it and they told me don’t worry it will all go when you are married. You will have many children, I have many children but it still didn’t go. Any time we were at the sea side, remember we were at the Atlantic shore and there was salty water and when it touches it formed rashes. And because of that I asked and got the authority’s permission. It happened to Ariyo, it happened to Akinrinade, it happened to me so we were given authority to keep our beards and I kept mine.

The Igbo question. No memorial…

If I were Igbo, I would feel exactly like that but I have been detribalised so my thinking is straight and I will tell you where the Igbo were right and where they were wrong and where the Hausa and Yoruba were right and wrong. The thing about genocide, when the Hausa leaders were killed and some Yoruba also were killed and we now found out that there were Igbo people that were not touched, what will you think? Whether they think it was right or wrong, that was what happened. The Hausa were leaderless. Look at what happened during Miss World. I was in Houston, many of those girls came back to the US, their parents were talking in the Golf Club and they said, you are going to Nigeria to do business, you better not go to the northern part of it and people now don’t want to go there because their children went for Miss World and there was rioting and about 100 people died. Out of these 100 how many would you say were Igbo, perhaps more than 50 percent. And what caused the riot, because some people were in bikini. You see, the Igbo have the right to think so. But I asked you the same question, you slapped me and in fighting back I broke your head, you went and reported to the elders, am I guilty? You killed people in Kaduna; they should let you go, I hear you. If my father had been there or my mother, I will level the entire neighbourhood o. You went to Asaba, killed all the Hausa at night, the Hausa came back in the midnight and revenged. You know those who really lost in this war, not just the Igbo people. Children of 3, 4, 5 years of age who saw their father and mother shot dead in front of them and they couldn’t do anything, they would live with it forever. These are the people I am addressing in my book that this should never happen again. You know I was telling you a while ago that the Igbo would still rule this country whether people like it or not. Just like the Germans, the day they now have this petroleum industries, many of these things we are using are petroleum based. All these you are holding are petroleum based, we are selling these things (as crude oil), the day they stop selling them and we start manufacturing with them or assembling them, just like the Germans, you will see what would happen in this country. But my brother, they have the right to think that Nigeria didn’t like them. But let me tell you, who will do what Gowon did? Apart from Geneva Convention, he insisted that we must do this, we must do that, even my own mother told me that I should never kill anybody looking at me in the face. Which civil war, in American civil war; there is war going on in Darfur, in the Congo, which did their leaders say don’t do this, don’t do that to the ‘enemy? We should be worshiping Gowon and am telling you why we all have come to this stage of hating or believing that the Igbo have been hurt is because Gowon did not try them (for war crimes). If he was one of those hawks from the north, one of those officers, they will try everybody, line them up and shoot them. And I don’t see what would have happened because they would try them properly; they carried weapons against the federal government of Nigeria and the national flag. I am telling you that we have nobody like Gowon in any part of the world that did what Gowon did. Yet he was discredited, the Igbo were given opportunities to talk because if people like Obasanjo did operation pincer one , there would be less than one thousand Igbo in Nigeria after the war. That’s what he did in Odi and Zaki Biam. As I wrote in my book, Gowon was not the hawk, he declared “no victor, no vanquished”. And for the Igbo to say they were starved when they already starved themselves. They killed the Italian oil workers forgetting that most of their relief supplies were coming from Rome, they captured 18 of them and even tried them and shot them.

Why were they killed?

They said they were passing information to the Nigerians; they were working in the oil fields.

It reflects the Biafran propaganda?

Completely and everybody ran away from them. That’s why Goldstein left, that’s why the Caritas left, that’s why the Pope left, that’s why the entire Europe left and now they supported Nigerians and said look go finish this war and lets us go rest. That’s what happened!

He’s lying about eating human flesh in Obubra. Obubra is traditionally not one of those places that eat human flesh. You don’t start such things even in war time situation. Anyone can do research on this. It’s not true. Secondly, there were very few deep freezers, if at all, in Obubra as at 1968. Maybe none at all. That part of the story is all false; maybe just introduced to sell his book but he shouldn’t try to do something despicable to make money at his age.

Kaka Colonel

Hope this book won’t be costly,

Mukulu

This is interesting. If Mr. Alabi Isama is not a Yoruba so which tribe is he from? Alabi is a Yoruba name, Isama, I don’t know. At his age,he’s expected to be truthful but this is not typical of an ilorin person. They are neither here nor there even though sociologically and historically majority of them are Yorubas

Adrian

A fairly believable account with rich military analysis but weak and sometimes naive social and political commentary.